Learning from Jesus - Pt. 7

 

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:7-14 ESV).

 

Whenever I greet my clients in the foyer, I always ask them if they would like a drink. We always have coffee, soft drinks, and bottled water available. It would be rare, though, for someone to come in and ask for a drink—unless it was very hot outside or the visitor was a child. Their inhibitions are much less pronounced.

 

Our reading today shows us Jesus’ request for water, which was especially unusual. Not only was he not supposed to talk to a Samaritan woman, but he was a guest at the well where she had come to draw water. She had also come alone at the hottest time of day, probably to avoid judgmental eyes and gossip. There Jesus met her and reached out to her. It began with a question that led into a conversation in which Jesus declared who he really was.

 

Jesus also knew the woman’s life story before inviting her into his story. Jesus always invites. He does not demand but, rather, chooses to connect with each one of us just as he did with the Samaritan woman. In the places where you go to step away from others, Jesus is waiting with a question: “Will you join me in a conversation about your life and where you would like it to go?” When the woman came to the well, she was expecting only to get a jar of water. Instead, she received living water (hope in the Messiah) that would fill her soul and change both her and her community (vv. 28-42). What is Jesus asking of you today?